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User blog:CompliensCreator00/Top 10 Compliens of 2017
Hello, Compliverse Wiki users, and Happy New Year!! Actually, at the time I'm starting this, I still have five hours until 2018 starts, but heck, Wikia says it's 2018 and if we're being honest, that's all that really ''matters, no? 2017 was an interesting year for the Compliverse! Mostly because we're on a new wiki now! That's cool! While I do admit I could've been a bit more active, (Sorry!) I do also have to say that we did good this year. Like, 'really good'. Looking back at all the new Compliens we've made, I feel everyone needs to pat themselves on the back, because this is easily the best batch of new creatures I've seen in a while, and I've seen some dang good batches of Compliens in 2015 and 2016. I'm hoping that this year, we can uphold these high standards, and create some of the best ones we'd ever see! Trust me, I think I have plenty of good ideas, and I'm excited to see what some of you have in store! Until then, however, I feel it's time to reflect on some of 2017's coolest new Compliens! However, I feel this needs some clarification: Due to the Complipedia/Compliverse Wiki split, obviously Compliens from previous years were first published on this wiki in 2017. To clarify, this means entirely new designs, ideas, and concepts posted this year. Even heavily redesigned old Compliens won't count, so sorry to Phasmapara and Phasmafena! I'll allow Hypnoship, since it has a new name, theme, and everything compared to Hynosis on the old wiki, and was created more-so with "grown form of Hyno" than "Hynosis redesign" in mind. Also, don't feel bad if none of your Compliens made the list! As I've stated, every Complien posted this year is absolutely fantastic, and I feel thrilled to see them on the website! Heck, I might be a little biased towards my own creations (it ''does ''feel good when you create something particularly satisfying), so I encourage all of you to post your own Top 10s, and talk about how you felt about 2017 on the Compliverse! I'm going to post two more every hour until midnight, so without further ado... Number 10. Coming in at number ten is Hypnoship! I've always been a big fan of weird, alien, paranormal things, and as far as flying saucers go, I'd say Hypnoship is a pretty cool one. It feels like a fitting successor to Hyno, with the extra arms, oblong shape, and glowing lights forming some nice touches. I also really appreciate the sort of "mystery" with these guys, as even in-universe, no one is quite sure what a Hypnoship "is." All we know is that encountering one of these things would be terrifying, which frankly, only makes them more lovable as far as I'm concerned. I mean, you know me! I'm the kind of person that celebrates Halloween twice! What else would you expect me to look for in a Complien? Of course, a spot of brilliance I sort of glanced past when I designed this has to be the color scheme. While I will shamelessly admit that the bright pink was sort of taken from Hypno-shroom in ''Plants vs. Zombies; at least when Hyno was being initially designed, it just kinda stuck, I do feel that that, combined with the bluish-purple highlights give this thing an almost "calming" appearance. For someone who doesn't know that this thing is going to manipulate and erase your memories in your sleep, chances are it's something you'd get peace out of looking at and easily fall victim to. I also like the bright pink appearance because it helps enhance this thing's otherworldly nature! We don't have floating pink saucer things around here, and not too too many other Compliens look this way either, other than stuff like Ploft. All-around a fantastic concept with some wonderful execution! Number 9. Why can't we have freaky angels like this anymore? I mean, there's nothing wrong with the humanesque cherubs and everything we see nowadays, but you know I'm all for the unsettling and paranormal, and nothing screams unsettling like that many eyes! Note there's twice as many as we can see, there's eyes on the back too! Anyway, I really dig Angepent primarily for its design and weird lore. While the mouth does sort of resemble a dress, which helps connect it to more modern angels, it also makes this thing infinitely freakier once you realize exactly what it is! I'm also glad that while this thing looks as freaky as it does, it isn't malicious at all. All it does is clean away sins and have a good time! Things that have enormous, constantly open maws and like a gazillion eyes aren't always evil, no? And I love the bit of lore that talks about how these things are a major factor in most religions due to their rarity, but have gotten a more peaceful appearance in some of these stories to be less frightening and more attractive. Now I'm not sure if that's the exact reason angels look the way they do now, as compared to how they often looked in older artwork, but it feels like a logical explanation. While usually I'd also be a little more critical of a design for being "unnatural," I do gotta praise it on Angepent. It looks more like an odd, holy being than anything else, and really gives the impression that this isn't of our world. I'm sorry for never finishing Icy Halloweek, but I do admit to being pretty satisfied with some of the stuff I made! Number 8. Mint Control, like Angepent, was created towards the end of the year, and shines just about as much, if not a little more! The basic concept for this thing was "peppermint as hypnotic, swirly eye" and I must admit, I really love the way it turned out. The shape of the mouth only emerged from when I tried to put together this thing in Photoshop in my art class, but ultimately I went for a more traditional approach, but dang did it turn out nice. The AI I had to use due to a busted tablet did a dang good job with the colors. Also, shout out to my Photography/Graphic Design teacher, because she helped me with the legs on this one. I wasn't exactly sure what to do, but her suggestion of candy cane legs turned out very nice! Anyway, I like how this thing's "mind control" works. It mostly just reproduces in excess to create several Mintions, which take hold of other Compliens to do its bidding. However, the Mintions also drain vitality, so when the Compliens can't move on much longer, they just become another tasty snack for the Mint Control. It's an interesting take that really distinguishes it from other Compliens like Hypnoship up above, though sometimes I'm wondering why it doesn't just control other Compliens on its own. Maybe to feed its children? That's something I didn't consider when I made this thing, actually. Still, its design is rad as heck, and a good design is really important when it comes to making a solid Complien. Number 7. No this isn't just a way for my to stroke my ego, I swear! Don't worry, both of the next two were made by other people, but until then... Sandwitch! God, I love that pun. It's kind of obvious, sure, but oh-so irresistable. While conceptually, Dustich has always been wonderful; I love mixing the witch with the broomstick, it's a really fun idea, I feel that Sandwitch really helped elaborate on that idea to help create a top-tier design. I like the now-untied spokes forming crazed-looking hair, especially when combined with those glasses, eyes, and smile. Dustiches may have been doing okay, but Sandwitches must be another story. I guess being surrounded by a landscape made of their desireshas just kinda leaved them crazed and obsessed? Regardless, per usual, while the design really helps add a lot of flavor to this thing, I feel the lore really helps elevate its status as well. While we don't have much about what this Complien does right now, we do know that in the middle ages, Dustiches would swipe up houses and occasionally do magic with the dust, but rarely would they leave their towns. Of course, expanding on these ideas with Sandwitch is loads of fun, as Sandwitch is pretty much a Dustich that has found a desert or beach and become obsessed ''with the sand. That's easy magic, kids! I love the concept that they'd invite more Dustiches over, until people who'd hire Dustiches for cleaning eventually had to deal with dusty bookcases. ''Oh the horror, why do anything if others would do it for you? The fact that this thing's backstory basically relies on a lazy upper-class in the past forming some large, petty debacles is pretty funny, if not kinda true to the real world. People are weird, man. That or I'm weird and don't get people. One of those two. I like these things. They look cool and have some fun flavor. Number 6. At number six is Pepearl's Inciseon, which I must say is a marvel of a design! It gets the basic concept of "surgeon" out of the way, but never feels all that human, rather a more abstract metal creature that I must admit I really, really love! I admit, I sometimes struggle creating Compliens that feel this "abstracted." Whenever I have a human concept in mind, usually I have difficulty creating something that feels more like a creature based around the job's concepts, than just a humanoid that professes in X thing, but Pepearl here does a brilliant job getting this all down! Inciseon is particularly neat, because it gives off a very similar vibe to most surgeons, if you get my drift. It doesn't exactly look calming, but it doesn't quite look frightening either? A tall, metal creature with knives for hands seems like something that would be terrifying to encounter in real life, but what I love about this is how well it works into the world of Compliens. Of course other Compliens would probably feel easygoing around one of these! In the Complien universe, this pretty much is what a surgeon "is," and chances are over the years, other Compliens would have an easy time trusting these things. I love that the information also notes that foreign species, like Mogurians or Humanoids, on the other hand, find these things to be more frightening. Also, while the design in and of itself is perfect, I love that this thing's "mouth" exists inside its metal robe, and that the thing eats vestigial organs. Clever way to create a creature that's carnivorous, but not particularly agressive! Absolutely spectacular design! Number 5. While the design alone makes Spajetidrake absolutely fantastic, the concept and flavor of it really help boast it as one of 2017's most spectacular Compliens. Made by Ker-plop0990 as an extension of 2016's Mindrake, Spajetidrake is one that exclusively grows from the cactus variation, and rather than looking into more "mythological" plants, Spajetidrake draws from the spaghetti tree hoax from only a few decades ago, but honestly I only love that more, because it really adds a layer of fun to Mindrake's concept. It can turn into any sort of fictional plant, really! What makes this even more fun is that this adds a "cactus" layer to the spaghetti tree idea, a new twist that makes for some reall fun design elements. Its needles have turned into noodles, and I love the "flowers" which are formed from clusters of spaghetti. This would probably look delicious if I enjoyed the texture of spaghetti, but alas. The personality given to these things is also really fun. I like these lazy noodle-tree-cactus things that just sort of rest in the desert, becoming rare because they just don't really care enough to reproduce. The fact that they lash out at things that attempt to take their spaghetti, which makes farming difficult, is especially interesting. Do the noodles continuously grow? Are there Spajetidrakes that have been so good at defending themselves, that they have especially long spaghetti strands because of it? I love the creativity of this idea; I don't think I've ever seen a creature like this before, and the information provided really provides many fun ideas about how these things work. Absolutely superb! Number 4. Man, I love Exhorguts. When I designed this thing, I was worrying that others wouldn't like it because it's too gross, but thank goodness people have taste. While going into this design, the only idea I had was "body horror," but ultimately it spun into a far more fun design than I ever would've imagined! Basically my thought process was along the lines of how starfish and sea cucumbers spit up their guts to eat things, but on a far larger, land-based, slightly grotesque scale. While mostly looking like a weird blob monster, I feel giving it more "human-like" organs really helped drive the point home of what this thing does. This thing's gonna spit up its organs and eat other things. And everyone loves it. While I'd be up for utilizing that one thing as just a single element of something else in the future, I feel playing that one feature up into its own design really helped for a nice "glutton" creature that was really missing from our lineup. Sure, we know the dietary habits of most Compliens, but I can't think of a Complien whose big gimmick was "this eats things" up until Exhorguts, and I'm very glad it took such a delightful turn. The addition of it spitting up toxic waste to digest things because it lacks teeth really just popped up because I needed an element for this and Toxic felt most fitting, but I'm glad because honestly it just really adds to this idea. This thing is Complanet's biggest glutton, but not necessarily in a way we'd usually consider, which I think helps really makes this one of 2017's biggest stand-out Compliens. Number 3. Mayabrell is sort of a simple perfection, you know? While most of the other Compliens I've loved this year are particularly elaborate designs, Mayabrell just takes a simple idea, and really livens it up. Mayabrell's whole concept is "living umbrella," but what would a living umbrella look like, provided it were to evolve naturally? This weird, walking tree thing was my answer, and I really dig the way it turned out! Basically this thing takes every concept people would associate with umbrellas, and throws a believable explanation for this weird umbrella tree thing. These are found at the beach, because it's a good place for them to soak up water, and they raise up in the sun, because that's how they commit to photosynthesis! While I love inanimate object creatures in any form, they often feel more fun than mammalian creatures pushed oh-so often by other sources, I also really have to applaud Mayabrell for letting this one feel so plausible. Perhaps, giant walking plants aren't something that really do exist in our world, but Mayabrell's weird line between flora, fauna, and... umbrella is just a really cool distinction, and one of those designs I really strive to create more things like. Perhaps the flavor, concept, and ideas aren't as unique as some of the other things I've seen, but how the themes play into one another make this one of my easy favorites for the year! Number 2. Honestly sorting this list was hard, because I love all these Compliens so much, but Dâwdâw was able to edge out just a few of the rest. Might just be my aesthetic tastes talking, but when I designed this thing, I feel like I knew I had gold on my hands. While trying to do an "abstract" design has always been something I've wanted to do, I've always really struggled with it, most of my attempts looking too much like one thing and not quite "surreal" enough. I think that Dâwdâw finally hits that amount of surrealism I've been looking for so long, so as far as personal reasons go, it's a pretty clear-cut favorite for this year. Of course, even without that, I feel the design and information do really enhance this thing's flavor! The mismatched eyestalks, the word "HELLO" written inside its mouth, and inconsistencies in the shape and color of its body really do help make this design stand out, but I never feel like there's a detail too many, you know? It's a bizarre, dysfunctional, clashing design, but one that works with that because it's meant to be that. The fact that this thing actually lives its life in a weird surrealist version of the universe is also pretty cool, but not nearly as fun as the fact it can impose this sort of thing on others. While the Reality Warp instinct has been used before, how it's incorporated into different Compliens can really make a difference, and the fact that Dâwdâw doesn't use it for any sort of advantage, but rather just because it's that hard to understand I find particularly interesting. Aside from that, I love the little detail that pretty much states that this thing actually speaks fluent English, but no Compliens have realized that yet. Compliens are from another dimension! They don't speak the languages we do! Number 1. When the new wiki started, it feels at least a smidge apparent what my new number one would be, suggesting I had it be the first "Featured Complien" without any sort of poll. It's not very often that you design something that gets you well enough that you immediately draw a poster of it and hang it up in your room, but I digress. Maringel is probably my favorite design of 2017, and one of my favorite designs of all-time! It blends the cute and creepy just well enough, while never feeling particularly threatening, and I do feel it takes well off of certain deep-sea lifeforms with its transparent skin, fabulous red eyes, and all that sort of thing. While a combination of three distinct lifeforms, Maringel doesn't just feel like "three animals thrown in a blender," but more-so an original creature with a "deep sea" vibe. Someone can probably disect Maringel's design into a number of elements, but there's no one creature Maringel leans towards, which I feel helps really make it feel particularly unique! I also love this thing's rivalry with the Bludsquid line, as it feels like one of the first times I really was able to flesh out a full Complien ecosystem. Maringels are primarily peaceful, just going around, eating plants off of Chronorouses, minding their own business, but their diet causes their composition to be particularly nutritious, and make them and Lumigae common prey, particularly to Bludsquids. However, since they live in the deep ocean, Bludsquids and Dracusquids are rarely exposed to light, and this makes the lights produced by Maringel particularly harsh towards the other line. It really helps make the Complien universe feel more "alive," and that is something I strive for constantly. Obviously there are a lot of honorable mentions. Heck, consider everything that isn't on the list an honorable mention, because this year was just really, really good! I'm excited to see what we all have in store for the upcoming years ahead of us! I hope you all enjoy a wonderful new year, and that 2018 is wonderful for all of you! Category:Blog posts